Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-22
DAILY HERALD.
THE RESTAURANTS.
The Different People TO be Seen
Therein.

rhe Different People to be Seen
Therein.
Eating houses in Los Angeles are
very numerous, and it is strange that
there are SO few that are worthy of the
patronage of the public. The Califor-
MIA public is essentially patronizer
sf the restaurant, and especially is
this the case in warm climate like
Los Angeles, where the ladies prefer
to eat away from home and where
time is too short to permit the men
to waste it in travelling back and
forth from homes on slow street cars.
There is, therefore, no place in the
city that person is enabled to obtain
q better insight into the character OF
the people than in the restaurants.
There is an old saying, "In vino
veritas," which has much truth in it i;
but it was spoken when everybody
was in the habit of drinking wine.
At the present time, in Los Angeles,
it might be translated, cat lunch ones
real character is revealed" 1t is at
the restaurant table that the character
comes out, wine or no wine. AT the
adjoining table there is always sure to
be the man who thinks about the cost
of each dish and whether he can afford
il before he orders. He carefully
studies the bill OF fare and selects
from it the cheapest dish that his
stomach can digest. He never takes the
extras and feels that he cannot afford
pie or wine or the after-dinner coffee
that is so indispensable to the true
epicure. He eats because he has to
live, because if he did not he could
not earn more money, and in conse-
quence he gets very little enjoyment
out of it. He looks twice at the
quarter he spends and goes into elabor-
ate mental calculations as to how
much he could save in the course of a
year if he only do without any lunch
ct all. "Three hundred days at %
cents day makes $75 year. This
would buy five suits of clothes or pay
rent for two months. Alas that man
was made with stomach that re-
quires filling 80 often" This is one
kind of the regular lunchers to be met
with, but not in Los Angeles so much
Is in San Francisco where the major
ity of people are impecunious.
Across the table from this man is
the good natured man and everybody
observes how the humor in him,
developed by the process OF eating
and drinking, shows out in
every word, look and gesture.
As the meal progresses he
becomes more talkative and
imparts a portion of his
geniality to those around him. Next
to him is the luncher, who has plenty
Of money but no appetite. He is
blase in the water of food and spends
$2 without satisfaction. 1t is the gre
garious luncher who gets the most sat
isfaction out of his eating. Day after
day number of these meet together
and proceed to some favored spot
where they spend an hour at the ta-
ble, tell stories, talk personal gossip,
discuss politics, horse-racing, baseball
and the ladies. This is carried on in
. good natured way and aids digestion
wonderfully. These are a few, only,
af the types that are met with in the
course of the day at the restaurants,
but if an extended study of mankind
is desired, there is no place like the
restaurant.
1t is the study of the waiter, how
ever, that is the most interesting to
the party who desires to obtain a good
meal. Upon the nature of the waiter de-
pends the qualification in visiting
the eating-house to great measure.
The waiter is much-neglected men,
Der Of society. No poet has composed
sonnets to his memory, nor has the
chronic collector of subscriptions
started a fund for his monument. |
Some prophet has, however, said: "a
patient waiter is no loser" and this
could be followed with profit by some
of the walters in Los Angeles, al
though in the majority of cases the
walters in the restaurants are to be
praised for the rapidity with which
they serve the customers. The only
trouble in the city is that the owners
of restaurants do not employ sufi-
cient force. The city is improving,
however, and with the march of pro-
Gress will come some individual who
will start an eating-house which Aill
be conducted on better basis than
those here now.